i forget where expert B go at our combine trials (white or red)
obviously not all the above classes run at every trial
eg1 at a wobbler there is a yellow (wobbler) and red (easier than normal novice)
eg2 at our pre67 trial we run red (sidecars and rigid and others) and white (harder)
eg3 at our sidecar trails we ran all four colours on a scale of skill (white - luscombe to yellow beginner)
fundamentally whatever the name / colour me as a southern fairy with no rocks would be totally out my depth in the rock strewn north while you northerners may not know the pleasures of southern mud plugging
they're staff reporters can't be bother (with some legitimacy) from coming all the way down south (where everyone lives) to do some reporting
thus the editorial slant (be it comment, letters, position of reports, etc) seams to have a real northern slant
hence the TBM YOU HAVE USED WORDS OR A PHRASE WHICH ARE NOT PERMITTED ON THIS WEBSITE. PLEASE DELETE YOUR POST/TOPIC. DO NOT TRY TO CIRCUMVENT THE FILTERS IN PLACE ON THIS WEBSITE would have been really interesting because it would be written by southerns
the next question is is it right that most of the reporters in TMX come form unpaid reporters doing it off their own backs ... ???
novice (red), the wobbler route is too easy but I'm still crap! (need to ride more often). its much worse (for me) when there are no pre65 or sidecars on the same route!
we run an expert trial at the weekend and i got to have a quick and brief chat with our president who does all the results
turns out what he's got running at the moment is the basic spreadsheet which after inputting the all the data he does a twofold sort (I don't know how to do that) based upon class and route. he also has like Bradford do a formula running to calculate cleans, ones, etc
however the other 40 / 50 odd trials clubs use different / other systems so the aim of creating one uniform system that could instantly calculate the centre champs ASAP (and also indicate grading easily) would be different. anyway i need to chat longer with our president and a few other about it.....
round our way they actually published the enduro standing excell spreadsheet so i think they are OK
in MX (more my forte), when its not on transponders - the result is done by hand. where the vlookup function can be used is that to print the programme the details have already been typed up and all the worker out person would have to do (usually my mum!) is type the finishing order in of each race (they only work out about the first 15 of 45) et voila - full details of a) race result overall on the day (over 3 races) c) heat method qualifying and d) series standing(s) (centre and club championships)
all 4 desired functions are simple(ish) working upon the same function, although the later would require inter sheet cross-referencing in a manner i have yet to get my head around yet (but undoubtedly possible)
then its got to be simple enough for my mum or a few other to use
really its just a question of playing about with the function knowing how it works - which is an issue to mull over rather than rush and generate something
exactly that should be (in theory) how it works and that will save the centre recorder a lot of work and make the results very easily to display to everyone
once you've got the trials the challenge would be transferring it to MX and enduros (my clubs other interests and where a market undebatable exists)
enduros have yet to decide an electronic system that works best but MX have settled for the transponder system - the results goes online and is extractable as an RSS feed or off the programme itself as a txt file (CSV IIRC)
but that system costs several grand to use so must club level stuff is still done by hand where the spreadsheet could very easily be adapted.....
we type all the data into a spreadsheet like this (PDF) -produce this on the day and award the main cup at the end of the event, etc and let everyone see this - our esteemed president then goes away and works out a result like this (PDF)
as its mentioned above , people like to see this
as webmonkey says though if the lookup function n be programmed in right, bearing in mind you know class and names in advance from producing the programme / entries in advance then it *should* be very simple, as the last stage would be just a lookup function
obviously the already mentioned exceptions like ROOC and DNF+DNS have to factored in
the next step would be get this to do the centre recorders job, and calculate points from each result and compile a series standings - which even AMB can't do yet (see mylaps.com) !!! --> if you can achieve this im sure i could argue for the centre buying it!
all this talks makes me which i did this for my GCSE IT project when we had people who actually knew excell about .......
luckily we have mains electric so have had PC's at out trials for over 15 years now, and we work out the main resutls there and then (sorted by class online by that night)
originally our club president wrote a programme in QBASIC that IIRC did it all for you (ie as you say just enter the results) but the programme couldn't cope when his beautiful oaki LaserJet died (after about 10 years of industrial use) - since then we've gone to a simple excel spreadsheet and hard work
got mine over a week ago (Newcastle under Lyme - staffs), spotted it by chance, it wasn't with the other bike mags
as for opinions, it didn't really do it for me personally, same TMX/DBR style and while the columns were good it seamed (again) very much a northern mag .......
will await with bated breath the new TBM with the supplement ....
off the top of my head virtually every centre has a healthy trials scene, and even theses not in the ACU (ie amca & ysma) are probable riding both
in mx at a local level the youth scene is more fractured while at adult level centre mx only happens in parts of the country (AMCA, ORPA, vintage, pre65, etc)
thus the mx community is bigger than ACU stats would show while trial is probable about right
NB several non riding club officials will be down as trials riders due to the ambiguity over senior administrate officials requiring / not requiring ACU affiliation
i like a proper old fourstroke engine - say from 15 year old mx bikes that raced the ACE fourstroke series - when everyone else was riding high pitched screaming two strokes - they we're real machines ......
Modern fourstrokes aren't really that special - in both mx and trails, just a little nicer than two strokes (in mx, it doesn
The 90's Fashion Disaster?
in UK Trials Talk
Posted
but Wulfsport gear is cheap!!! and i can get away with one set of gear for MX, enduro and trials!!!
rabie (student!)